Management Evolution: 1960s Reforms to 1990s Network Model
The Evolution of Management: From 1960s Reforms to the 1990s Network Model
The 1960s: Addressing Dissatisfaction and Inefficiency
The imposition of a new managerial norm is always accompanied by criticism of a prior state of capitalism and a previous way of making a profit. Criticism of the old *savoir-faire* is the way in which past and present functions make use of historical memory. In the management of the 1960s, there were two problems: strong dissatisfaction on the part of cadres and managerial problems bound up with the giant size of firms. Cadres are what a firm’s value consists of. They aspire to share decision-making power, to be more autonomous, and to understand managerial policies. These themes appear in many 1960s texts.
In the 1960s, cadres had a sense of embodying modernity. Managers had simply added levels of hierarchy. Large firms inspired fear, presented as an enclave threatening the freedom of democratic countries. Capitalist firms seemed to be fascists. Solutions to this were decentralization, management by objectives, and meritocracy. The goal in the 1960s was to impose these new managerial methods.
Management by objectives had the further advantage of furnishing clear and reliable criteria for measuring performance to motivate cadres. This was extended to large firms too.
The operating models and styles that served as foils in the 1960s all pertained, to varying extents, to the logic of domestic worlds. This makes for discussions of the French case. The elimination of forms of behavior pertaining to a domestic logic was an urgent task in old Europe (mostly France). American methods became more efficient in France. In the 1960s, the premium put on merit was coupled in those with the strongest convictions with a critique of academic qualifications.
Following the 1936 strikes, the first unions of cadres derived from engineers’ associations had been compelled to exclude employees from their ranks. The 1960s project aimed at the liberation of cadres, relaxation of the bureaucracy, and growing integration of ever-larger firms.
The 1990s: Embracing the Network Model and Global Competition
The 1990s model moved towards a model of the firm as a network. Themes of competition and constant change assumed unprecedented salience. The advice in texts included, for example, adapting to all changes and securing a permanent technological advantage against competitors. One key figure of management, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, explained that it was henceforth necessary to “teach giants to dance.”
Things were different in the 1990s. We find the old capitalist countries confronting the emergence of a third capitalist pole in Asia. First place went to Japan. Third World countries abandoned the policy of development via import substitution, imitating the successful formula of Japan. In the 1990s, Black Africa and Latin America were conspicuous by their absence. The mechanisms proposed by authors of the 1990s to face the challenges they identified comprised an impressive miscellany of managerial innovations.
- Workers must be organized in small, multi-tasked teams.
- Their real employer is the customer.
The process of transforming the old organization to achieve this model was called re-engineering. Thanks to many new mechanisms, the hierarchical principle was demolished, and organizations became flexible, innovative, and proficient.